Notes from an Irreverent Reverend (and Friends)

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Here’s a video for Holy Week and Easter 2013, from the team at ProfligateGrace.com – including Stan Goff, Kara Slade, and Amy Laura Hall. The music, Canticle of the Turning, is a paraphrase of the Magnificat. This version is from the Emmaus Way album Rite 7.

Emily started this blog, and she gave me permission to tell the story. She was hustling out the porch door for a sleepover with Samantha, and I caught hold of her backpack to slip in her toothbrush. “No! Mom, I will put it in!” she insisted, and while she did, I noticed a copy of Bitch Magazine in there with her footie pajamas. She looked at me, worried about my reaction. (Worried, mostly, that I would tell her she couldn’t take it.) Hmmmm . . . I asked her to sit down and give me a minute to think. Inhale. Exhale. (There are mommy moments when I use my Lamaze breathing well past the due date.) I looked over the Smitten Kitten advertisements and decided they were too subtle for her to understand. (That is a topic for another blog.) Then, I read quickly again through a few articles, to make sure they were not more explicit than I had remembered. Then, while staring into space, trying to decide what her friend’s mom would think, my eyes focused on several copies of Vogue that she and Rachel had been cutting up for collaging. Vogue has anorexic, bored, zombie-looking girl-women, often sprawled on the floor in clothes that are impractical for walking across the room. (Why do I allow such trash in my house?) Bitch offers bold, lively essays on ways that we are snipped and clipped in pop-culture. Maybe Em and Samantha could use a bit of “Bitch”? I permitted Em her contraband, and texted Samantha’s mom a heads-up. Read more

Someone with The Martyrs Project contacted me to ask if I would post about them. Their icon looks like the one for the Blair Witch Project, crafted to convey: IMPORTANT, ANCIENT, and SCARY. “WHAT WOULD YOU DIE FOR,” the opening screen from the Martyr Project states. (There is no question mark, so it doesn’t actually ask.)

Welcome!

This blog is for out-of-the-box Christians and other curious people. Profligate Grace is meant to be a catalyst for incarnate, face-to-face solidarity and community organizing, rather than a substitute. I am typing in trust (often with thumbs) that the internet can be a blessing as well as a challenge. Inspired by brave women from Egypt to Tunisia to Arizona, I am also typing with hope that courage is contagious, and that your little screen connecting to my little screen helps you to be brave in your own beautiful, creative corner of the world.